


The Baths of All The Western Stars

by biichama (biichan), roachpatrol



Category: Homestuck
Genre: Body Horror, But can you ever really OWN a starship?, Consent Issues, Dubious Consent, F/M, Helmsman Sollux, M/M, Multi, The Ship Who Lisped, Transformation
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-11-23
Updated: 2011-11-23
Packaged: 2017-10-26 10:58:59
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 8,449
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/282279
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/biichan/pseuds/biichama, https://archiveofourown.org/users/roachpatrol/pseuds/roachpatrol
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Can you ever really OWN a starship?</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Baths of All The Western Stars

**Author's Note:**

> Biichan wrote this, then Roach drew the pictures and beta-read the _shit_ out of it.

For the longest time, all you feel is pain.

Then, while the pain does not stop, it does become manageable.

There are people clanging around inside of you. Inside of you? You seem to be experiencing double--ugh--vision. The eyes in your head can only see the echoing darkness, lit by the cathode glow of buttons, but the eyes... outside? The eyes outside your head tell you that you are on an small island in the middle of the fucking ocean, parked -- wait, _parked?_ \-- next to a wrecked pirate ship that seems pretty fucking small, since it’s only five or six times big as you, tops, and who the fuck would have a wrecked pirate ship that fucking small on their moronically tiny island.

So yeah, there are people inside of you and if you concentrate you can see them, a pair of fucking seadwellers, walking through your veins which are somehow made of metal and you have a terrible thought as to what has happened to you and you don’t fucking want to believe it because if it’s true this is seriously something from your worst fucking nightmares.

“It’s only for in-system jaunts,” the douche in the scarf is saying to his girlfriend. “It’ll have to be upgraded before we can take it on any interstellar trips. But it was a steal at the price and Vris has a neighbor who’s an engineer and I got my cognition on that it’ll be ready for some reel sea-reous deep space adventurin’ by the time we’re ten. Maybe earlier!”

Vris? VRIS! Fucking Serket, of course. After what she did to Nitram, you and Terezi managed to hack a way to communicate with her... you don’t know what he was, actually. Her patron? Not her friend, Serket didn’t _have_ real friends. The douchebag with the white text. Aradia got talked down from her Haunt Serket plan, white text douche was contacted, Serket got what she deserved with no one the worse off, and you guess you thought she was dead? Hah. Hah. Yeah, right.

Didn’t Terezi say once that Serket’s boyfriend was a seadweller? You weren’t paying attention.

There’s the hiss of a door opening and suddenly your eyes--your real eyes--can see light coming from the doorframe. Your glasses are gone. You don’t know who took them. Whoever did took away your tee shirt too and left you in this bodysuit, grown-up clothing. Maybe you’ve been asleep somehow for five sweeps and you’re an adult now, ten sweeps old, stuffed in the core of a starship like you’ve always feared you would be.

Wait, no, that’s _stupid._

Someone flips a switch on your wall and suddenly the block is bathed in light.

You _are_ stuffed into the core of a starship. This deduction renders you mute with horror, and you can only gape at the two intruders into your prison cell-- your _helmsblock_.

The girl--she’s very pretty, if nothing else, and the color of the symbol on her swimsuit is _really fucking high-caste_ \--makes a soft sound of surprise. “He’s just our age!”

“Yeah, well, it’s only a small ship,” says the douche in the scarf. “Small ship, small helmsman. They’ll grow together, until they’re both worthy of being your flagship.”

The girl walks over, touches her hand to your cheek. You shiver, still struck stupid with horror, and she removes it. “Whale, still,” she says, sounding dubious.

“He’s a high-powered gutterblood psionic,” says douche-scarf. “There was no way he wasn’t going to end up in someone’s ship eventually.”

“NOT TRUE NOT TRUE LET ME GO LET ME GO,” you scream, finding your voice-- all of your voices. Your words flash on the viewscreens, but the tubes and wires implanted in you make your true voice hoarse and the ship’s vocals are filled with static.

“The mute button is here,” says douche-scarf with a terrifying lack of concern. He presses something embedded in your walls and now you can only shout with your pathetic organic lungs and you fucking hate this douchebag so much, so fucking much, so _platonically_ much. You would kill him if you could only reach.

The girl looks at him. “Shore-- um, _should_ we let him go?”

Douche-scarf shakes his head. “He’s already had the necessary amputations, you know? Gettin’ your legs lopped off is kind of in the order of a one way operation.”

“Poor thing,” says the girl and you are not entirely sure if she means it.

“It’s like I told you,” douche-scarf says, “he was destined for this, anyway, it’s just fuckin’ serendipity that I got to him ‘afore anyone else did. He’s that good of a psionic: strictly top-of-the-line, I wouldn’t ‘a brought you anything less. Possibly just as good as Hers,” --you can hear the capital letter-- “in time. Much better for you to have him than some mean old ironfisted grumpy-gills from the Spaceforce, I know you take good care ‘a all your stuff.”

The girl nods slowly.

“I’ve been studying about Helmsmen,” says douche-scarf, sounding all self important. “It’s really the best that we’ve installed him now--they say the older they are, the harder time they have adjusting to their work. Five sweeps is probably the best time for an installation--their minds are developed enough to handle the basic jobs, but there’s less chance of the kind of complications you get with adult trolls. There’s a higher risk of insanity and self-harm with adults on account a they got all these personality problems and quadrants that get broken off when you take them and stuff like that, makes romantic problems like you wouldn’t fuckin’ believe in the Fleet. Plus, the ships handle that much more intuitively when you start them young. And since at five sweeps, they don’t generally have any quadrants filled... uh...it’s just easier. For that kinda stuff...” His voice trails off, then he shakes his head slightly. “Well, so, the one problem with taking them in when they’re young is, a’ course, that they aren’t yet strong enough to go very far, so you can’t install them into ships bigger than this one and most Captains--most adult Captains--don’t want to wait around three to five sweeps in a tiny little puddle-jumper like this, waiting for their Helmsman and starship to mature. Lotsa trolls say it’s better to break them harder, later, and trust to the Captain’s skill at the console to make up for the lack of intuitive handling. But I didn’t think you’d want that.”

“No,” says the girl softly. “I wouldn’t.”

She looks at you with an oddly serious expression, but her eyes are filled with pity and longing and possessiveness. You’re _hers_ , those eyes say. A cherished possession, but still a possession. Slowly, though, her mouth widens to a smile that even you, even now, can admit is beautiful.

“Well,” says the girl and she reaches up to touch your cheek again, ever so briefly. “Thank you for serving me, Helmsman.”

  


You couldn’t tell her that she’s welcome, even if you wanted to. You just stare balefully at her, your throat too dry to scream, your head too thick with exhaustion and fear to bite.

She turns to hug douche-scarf. “Thank you, Eridan. You’re the best moray-eel ever.”

His expression falls, but he pats her back and buries his face in her hair. “Happy wriggling day, Fef.”

\--

When Aradia and Terezi were four sweeps old, they were Starship Girls.

There’s always a couple kids in any group of friends in that age group that are. They go around reading their stupid Starship Pal books-- _Starship Detective_ and _The Mystery Of The Pink Starship_ and all the rest of that moronic trash--wearing their stupid sparkly lockets that came with the first book, the ones with the built-in tasers, which of course came in a set of two: _one for you and one for your special someone!_ They were always looking at the sky and sighing and making wistful pronunciations like _can you ever really OWN a starship?_ and talking about what they’d name theirs if they had one and which planet they would take it to first.

It was all terribly fucking annoying to be around--especially since _you_ were the one who always had that fate hanging over your head if you couldn’t prove that you were too smart, too skilled to be wasted on being a ship’s battery, they wouldn’t bother with Aradia, not with a maroon’s lifespan--and you were so fucking glad when they outgrew it and started flarping with Tavros all the fucking time instead.

You don’t think your fucking Captain’s outgrown it at all, if the Starship Pal books that are currently scattered around the floor of your helmsblock are any indication. She reads in your block all the time, long boring hours you spend staring at her bowed head, and she never fucking picks up after herself.

Feferi--Fef for short, or that is at least what that douchebag Eridan calls her--is the name of the girl who owns you and evidently she is the one and only heir of Her Imperial fucking Condescension herself, which beggars the question as to why she’s still alive, except that they say the Condesce is getting a little careless in her old age and Feferi does have her personal castle right in front of fucking Gl’bgolyb herself.

You are currently parked right next to a Horrorterror. Concentrating on Feferi’s lack of taste in reading material seems like a much better thing to focus on.

When Feferi first took you underwater and your helmsblock flooded you flipped the fuck out because you don’t have any gills, they didn’t fucking graft any on you either, but the daymare’s profusion of ship’s umbilicals that have been plugged into your flesh make it so you don’t even need to breathe at all, while at the same time toughening up your skin so that it’s like seatroll’s, smooth and tough, so it won’t slough away and disintegrate from spending so much time underwater.

Too bad. You hoped you might die that way.

But the set-up is too good, you aren’t going to die from anything but boredom and possibly your brain exploding if the princess decides to strain your ships’ capacity past its breaking point. No chance of that-- she hasn’t done more than coo over you like you were made of eggshells since you got parked down here.

There she is now, pretty as a picture, swimming though your corridors like a fucking fish, culling fork in hand. “Hello, Cuddlefish!” she greets you brightly.

“2ollux,” you rasp, the name lighting up your screens all mustard yellow.

She blinks. It’s the practically the first thing you’ve said to her besides variations on the theme of _let me die_. “Excuse me?”

“II have a name. 2ollux Captor.”

“Oh!” she says. “Of course. I’m sorry. Hello, Sollux.”

“Hello, your Hiighne22,” you say, for lack of anything better.

She smiles at you. “Call me Feferi, Sollux.”

“Hello, Feferii,” you say, uncomfortable with the informality, she is a fucking royal, but then again you’re a fucking ship. Who insists on formality with their fucking ships anyway?

The first couple times she swam by to talk to you, you refused to reply. Then it was screaming, then begging, then a lapse back into sullen, stubborn silence. But you’re so fucking bored now, ships don’t get to connect to the Alternian interweb because they might catch a virus, but you know it’s really so you can’t tell your friends where you are. You’re so fucking bored, so you might as well talk, it’ll fill up a few more minutes of the night. Day. You don’t fucking know which it is, it’s not like you have a normal sleep-cycle as a ship, you’re kind of supposed to be on all the fucking time, unless you go into hibernation or whatever, but it’s not real sleep then, it’s just... blankness.

You don’t know what’s worse, the old night terrors or the new blankness.

“How are you doing today, Sollux?” she says and you want to fucking cry at this stupid parody of polite conversation. You don’t reply at first, so she puts her hand on your cheek and just leaves it there. You try to pull back, but you’re stuck in here tightly, you can’t move, that’s the worst part of it all, you can’t move, you don’t have hands or legs anymore, you’re just a fucking torso in a pillar.

“Sollux,” she whispers, “is everything all right?”

“Of cour2e iit ii2n’t all riight,” you scream, the water reverberating with the sound from your speakers loudly enough that you’re surprised she isn’t covering her ears. “II know II’m ju2t your 2hiip--that II’m not even a real troll to you--2o why are you beiing 2o niice? Why do you keep comiing to vii2iit me?”

“You’re warm,” she says simply, curling her body around what remains of yours.

You realize, then, that she is lonely. You’ve never seen anyone visit her hive except that douchebag Eridan and he’s certainly not around nearly as often as he should, if he’s supposed to be her moirail.

You don’t know why it matters, that she’s just as lonely as you.

“You’re not,” you say gruffly.

She just hums a little and curls around you tighter.

“2o,” you say finally, “are you ever goiing two actually u2e me?”

She smiles at you. “I was waiting for you to ask.”

\--

“Just a quick orbit around the planet,” she whispers in your ears. “It’s our first trip. We can work up to the big stuff.”

You nod--there’s at least that much free movement left to you--and she swims away to the cockpit, to better to watch you take off.

You aren’t sure what to do at first. Eridan had you on manual control when he and Feferi brought you down to Feferi’s hive and ascending and descending aren’t quite the same thing. Maybe she realizes this, because she pats your console and says, “Don’t worry, Sollux. I know we can do it together. Trust me.”

You shift around a little in the water, making unsteady circles around her hive. You can do this. You can do this. You’re freaking out maybe just a bit. HOW THE FUCK ARE YOU SUPPOSED TO _DO_ THIS?

Feferi just strokes your console and makes reassuring sounds at you. You can’t feel her quite the way you could when you were whole and real, the sensation goes straight to your brain, no nerve endings to get in the way, just pure sensation, but nothing fucking feels like it was when you were whole and real, you’re a fucking ship, you have no hands, the part of your body you used and needed most and it’s been re-purposed to make your fucking controls for the fucking ship, not that you know how they properly work and--

\--oh. OH. Oh, that’s _nice_. Keep stroking there, you think, good, good, we’re doing this, we’re making it happen, is this how, is that how, oh _yes_ , that is definitely how, oh _yes_ , you _got_ this shit.

“If you reely need me to,” she says quietly, coaxingly, “I could probably use the manual controls to get us up.”

“That won’t be nece22ary,” you tell her hastily. “II can do thii2. II ju2t have two fiigure out how.”

“Don’t worry, Sollux,” she says, touching things on your console that makes you tingle all through your hull. “I bereef in you.”

You have no idea why that thought makes you happy--and there’s a part of you that is really fucking worried at the fact that it _does_ \--but fuck that, she’s sliding her fingers across your console just right and you need to figure out how to fucking ascend.

You’ve got moving down. Maybe you should try descending, just a little, just to see if you can do it on your own, without someone taking control of you, you kind of fucking hated it when Eridan did to take you down.

Okay. Descending. Going down. You can do this, right, there you are going down, going down in a circle, winding your way around the little undersea mountain Feferi has her castle on.

Oh man, that feels so _good_.

So you can descend. So ascending is probably descending in reverse? Yeah. You can work with that. So here you are, going around in another corkscrew circle, moving slowly up, then faster, then faster.

“Oh, Sollux,” Feferi whispers. “You’re doing such a _good_ job.”

You rise through the water, past pods of whales and schools of fish--some of them lusus-white, others brightly colored like any other fauna--and the light gets brighter and brighter as you make your way up, and then you finally break surface--

\--and it’s day, it’s fucking day, the sun is out, you’re going to _die_ \--

\--but you don’t, because you’re a _ship_ , you’re a fucking ship, and they build ships strong, with specially treated husks and windows, they build them for fucking space after all and that’s where you’re heading, you’re leaving this terrible planet behind, going to fly out into the sun with Feferi and die in a blaze of glory because there is nothing, _nothing_ , better than this.

And the wind is roaring against your hull as you ascend and you’re going faster and faster and faster, you need to be fast if you’re going to break atmosphere, and Feferi is stroking your console, murmuring what a good ship you are and fuck it, you are a good ship, you are the best fucking ship, and if that’s all you are anymore at least you are the best at it.

There is nothing in this world like the sensation of flying. Absolutely nothing. You could do this all fucking _day_. You’re screaming, roaring, and it’s got nothing to do with fear.

Higher and higher you fly, you can feel gravity pulling down on you but fuck gravity, just fuck it, you are escaping this fucking planet, you are breaking past it, you are breaking through--

“Oh, Sollux!” Feferi gasps. “You’re _amazing_!”

You feel gravity’s tug loosen a little, you’re out, you’re free, you are soaring through space around this fucking planet, you’re in fucking _SPACE_.

And you’re abruptly really fucking tired. You can feel your body-- yourself, your _real self_ \-- hanging down heavily from your bonds in the helmsblock, and you’re boiling with psionic exertion and atmospheric friction-burns.

But that’s okay, you can rest now, just float around Alternia, looking down at the planet below like a little marble, and above you at the glittering stars and here you are, in space, and it’s so fucking beautiful, your crapsack planet is the most beautiful thing you have seen in your life.

“Oh, Feferii,” you breathe out, the words a soft hoarse hiss from your speakers.

“It’s so _beautiful_ ,” she says, eyes wide with wonder under purple rimmed goggles, which match the ones she tied on you on her wriggling day.

“Iit really ii2,” you murmur.

“Thank you,” she says, stroking your console lightly and oh god, that feels good. “Thank you, Sollux, for bringing me up here. You’re a very clever Helmsman.”

“Iit wa2 nothiing,” you say and you are suddenly glad she’s in the cockpit and can’t see you, because you know your cheeks are bright yellow from hearing this, from feeling everything this is making you feel. You are a good Helmsman, you are clever, you are, you are simply the best and suddenly you want to show the entire fucking Galaxy how good you are, how good you and Feferi can be together.

“Hey, Feferii,” you say, as you swing closer to a sun that cannot burn you now, not what you have become. “II’m glad you’re my Captain.”

“I’m glad you’re my ship,” she says, so kindly.

It kills all the rest of the words in you, and you turn your gaze back out to the stars.

You wish you could say you don’t know how long you float up there, but you can tell the passing of every single second, each of them marked and inscribed in the memory banks that you know lurk underneath your helmsblock and that’s a bit disconcerting to think part of your mind, if only some of the part that remembers, is in a computer.

It isn’t an apiary system. There isn’t even that small tie to your old life, your old self. You wonder how your bees are doing without you. How your custodian is getting along... but you’re just fooling yourself, you know what’s happened to him, you haven’t watched Eridan and Feferi bring dead lusii to Gl’bgolyb for the better part of a perigee not to know what happened to the poor dumb bastard.

You wonder, idly, as you pass close to the sun again, if Gl’bgolyb eats starships. Or if the sun-- if there’s anything left out there that could kill you now.

“Let’s go down,” says Feferi, patting your console. Part of you thrills at her order, but the other half of you balks, stubborn and angry.

“No.”

“We need to go down,” she says in a quiet, patient voice, stroking your console gently. “I need to eat. You need to refuel.”

“II don’t care,” you say. “II liike iit up here. Iit’2 a good place two diie.”

She looks worried when you say that. “You don’t mean that, do you, Sollux? Do you?”

You say nothing. Instead you gather your strength and start flying towards the sun.

Your last chance, and you always wanted to go out in a blaze--

“I’m sorry,” she whispers and she flips the switch for manual controls.

It’s like she’s wearing your non-existent hands as a glove, like she’s wearing you as a glove. It’s fucking terrifying and it feels so fucking good and so fucking dirty and you can’t fucking deal with it, you can’t, how can she do this to you? You thought you were friends and now you feel so fucking violated.

Feferi is absolutely frantic. “I’m sorry, Sollux, I’m so sorry, we’re meant for bigger, better things than just this little star, you have to bereef me, please bereef me.”

There is nothing elegant to your re-entry. You splash down in the middle of the ocean like a fucking rock, screaming the whole way through every speaker you’ve got.

You can see a hint of tyrian purple in the corners of her eyes as she steers you in place next to her hive and races down your corridors to your helmsblock, to this stub of what used to be you, throwing her arms around you and holding tight.

“You can’t die,” she says. “You can’t die, Sollux. You’re _mine_ , damn you.”

You sink your fangs into her her fucking fin.

The tears in her eyes spill over, but she doesn’t let go, no matter how hard you bite, even though she’s bleeding clouds of precious imperial blood all over your helmsblock. She doesn’t let go, she hugs you fucking _tighter_ , and suddenly you’re crying too, the lenses of your goggles filling up with yellow, so that all you can see is from your sensors and cameras.

You’re trapped. You’re trapped in this shitty fucking spaceship and it doesn’t matter if you fly up to space if you’re only going to crash down here again in this stupid watery prison. She will never let you die, your very _life_ is bound to this fucking ship, and some part of you still feels so _good_.

II liiked it, you say finally, just your speakers, you aren’t fucking letting go of that fucking fin. II liiked beiing your 2tar2hiip.

“Why wouldn’t you?” she asks and there’s a hitch to her voice which you know is from the pain. _Good_ , you think. “You’re my Helmsman. I’m your Captain.”

II’m not a helm2man, you snarl. II’m a troll. II wa2 a troll. Now II’m nothing but a hacked-up tor2o 2tuck iin the miiddle of a fucking meat piillar.

“You’re amazing,” she says. “ _We’re_ amazing. We’re going to go so far together, Sollux, you have to bereef me. Be brave for me and never pull a stupid stunt like that again, and we’ll go beyond the sunset someday. We’ll leave everyfin bad behind.” And for a moment you feel almost tempted but then she paps your face lightly and says, “Shoosh.”

Your screams echo down your corridors: 2TOP IIT, 2TOP IIT, WHAT ARE YOU FUCKIING DOIING, 2TOP, 2TOP, 2TOP, II HAVE A FUCKIING MOIIRAIIL, YOU’RE NOT HER, 2TOP, 2TOP, 2TOP!

And then, softer, You have a moiiraiil too. Even iif he iis a giiant douche.

She can’t nod properly with her fin in your mouth but she makes her best effort: a sharp, jerky little gesture.

“I’m sorry, I just wanted you to calm down!”

II just want two go home. II want my moiiraiil. II want my LIIFE.

“I’m reely, truly sorry,” she whispers. “I swear on my fins that I am, Sollux. But you can’t go home. You know that. You’re a Helmsman now. That other life is behind you. It’ll fade in time.”

What iif II don’t want iit two fade?

“It doesn’t matter,” she says. “It will anyway, and you’ll be happier, then. That’s what it says in all the manuals and-- and stories.”

You think of all the well-worn books she has lying around your floors, terrible soppy trash that knows more about your life than you do, now, and feel suddenly jealous.

II want 2omethiing two read. Or 2omethiing two do when II’m waiitiing around for you.

“Oh,” she says. “You’re bored, aren’t you? I’ll install some games on you. You’d like that, wouldn’t you?”

You don’t say anything. You’re holding back, you guess. Trying to see what she says--or does--next.

“I wasn’t kidding,” she said, “when I said we’ll do amazing things. We are. I’m going to win the Empire from the Condesce--I’m going to build my own private Spaceforce--and you’ll be my flagship, Sollux, you and the Sunfish. It’s rotten, Sollux, perfectly good trolls get culled every day because the empire has no use for the imperfect, but I’d change that, I would, I’d find places for them where they can serve the empire, where they can be happy and useful, where they can do good and live lives as long as any in their caste, but I can’t do it without you, Sollux, I just can’t.”

You let go of her fin.

“Iif that wa2 a liie,” you say, “II’m cra2hiing thii2 2pace2hiip iintwo the 2un.”

\--

“SHIP! ENGAGE WARP FIVE!”

Eridan strides back and forth across your helms block, fist clenched in the air like a douchebag. The air, not the water, because you’re on air-atmosphere like an Official Fleet Ship, at said douchebag’s request, because of course it’s your fucking purpose in life to enable his stupid FLARPing.

You do not engage warp five. You couldn’t even if you fucking wanted to, you won’t have warp five until you’re ready to be fitted for interstellar travel and that won’t be for another sweep or two.

Eridan turns to face you, waggling his finger in your face. “Ship! Engage warp five!”

Fuck this, you’ve been playing along all day because this is the douche’s wriggling day and Feferi made you promise to be nice to him, but you really have had enough of his bullshit.

“2ay plea2e.”

“What? No!” Eridan glares at you. “Engage your fuckin’ warp drive!”

“2ay pleeeeaaaa2e.”

“NO, NO, JUST DO IT YOU STUPID HUNK OF JUNK,” he practically screams in your face, but his voice is tinier in the air than it is in water and his scarf and cape hang limply off him instead of flowing behind. Some seadweller! He’s nothing like your Captain.

“That’2 not plea2e.”

“FEF!” he yells down the corridor. “YOUR STUPID SHIP WON’T FOLLOW MY ORDERS.”

“Of course he doesn’t,” Feferi calls back and she’s carrying the squiddy treats, she fucking is, oh god, they look delicious and you fucking earned them today. “I changed his permissions a few hours back so that he doesn’t have to follow any orders that don’t contain the word please.”

“Why the fuck would you do that?”

“Because he asked me,” Feferi answers as if that’s the most natural and simple thing in the world and you fucking lucked out to get her as your Captain, you really fucking did. “And because you shore could use a few more manners!”

“But he’s a fuckin’ ship,” Eridan whines. “Why should he care if I say please or not? I’ll glubbin’ well say what I want.”

Feferi snorts softly. “A ship has feelings too, you know.”

“That is the _stupidest_ thing I’ve heard in my fuckin’ life,” Eridan grumbles.

He watches Feferi bring you your squiddy treats with a distinctly peevish expression on his face. You know from his conversations with Feferi that he’s just lost his girlfriend--that she’s broken it off in favor of going black for some crippled brownblood, and why does that description sound so familiar?--and he’s definitely been even more of a douchebag lately, something you hadn’t thought was possible. It’s like he _wants_ to get on your nerves.

Too bad you only hate him platonicly. He glares black death at you and over your Captain’s head, as Feferi holds up the first squiddy treat, and you just raise your eyebrows like _who, me?_ , and relish his choked-off hiss.

You bite down on the tentacle, feel its ink gush into your mouth, luxuriating at the rubbery texture as you tear with your fangs, so very salty and delicious. Food is _awesome_.

  


“I’ll be in my quarters,” your Eridan mutters, stalking off. You watch him with your cameras, your eyes closed in bliss.

“Such a _good_ boy,” your Captain murmurs as you finish a second squid. “My wonderful, clever Sollux.”

You are, you fucking are, you’re hers and she’s yours, your beautiful Captain, you would do fucking anything for this beautiful, mad girl.

Your screens are filled with little yellow and tyrian purple hearts. You are everythiing to me, you tell her, licking her hand and it’s true, it’s fucking true.

In the first mate’s chambers, Eridan flings himself onto the couch. You lock the door behind him.

Can II have another treat? you ask, sucking hard on a finger. Sucking _loud_. You’ve got the intercom on, so that Eridan can hear _everything_.

“Just _one_ moray,” Feferi tells you sternly. “I don’t want you to make yourself sick!”

You think of protesting--these things are so fucking good--but she’s probably right. Your stomach is probably shrunk down pretty small by now. You don’t really use it for anything but reward snacks. You get most of your power from the fusion-powered generators coupled to your matter tanks.

You start turning the heat up in the first mate’s chambers.

At some point during the last sweep and a quarter, Feferi stopped leaving her Starship Pals books all over the floor of your helmsblock and started leaving steamy, trashy romance novels instead, all about the enduring bonds between a Captain and her Helmsman. Or, anyway, that was what you found out they were about after you got her to feed digital copies of a couple of them into your data banks.

Mostly they were terrible. You’ve long-since learned Feferi’s taste in literature will never improve. She reminds you of a troll you once knew and whose name you can’t quite call up -- it exists in the hazy part of your mind that is not recorded and logged in the databanks below your helmsblock -- who loved soppy, stupid romances just as much as she does.

He was much more of a defensive jerk about it, though. What had he been called...

The books were educational, though. You learned that a Captain and Helmsman have to be in a quadrant together--any quadrant, really, though of course which quadrant it was kind of mattered. Most of them were moirails, which was right out for you, of course, because you have one... somewhere. She’s out there somewhere, brave and beautiful, Aradia... something. You think it starts with Meg? Aradia Meg-something. Your moirail.

You really kind of miss her when you let yourself think about it.

So no moirallegiance for you and Feferi--too bad for Eridan, that bulgesucker, you _know_ he was hoping you’d take her pale quadrant so he could take her flushed. As it happened, it worked out the other way around, entirely due to your choice, because Feferi promised you she’d be just as happy with you auspisticizing between her and the rest of the galaxy.

Fuck _that_.

You suck hard on your matesprit’s fingers, letting your internal microphones pick up on her delighted moans and amplifying them through your blocks and corridors. In his chamber, you can see that Eridan has shed his cape and scarf, is flushing purple with the heat, is sweating, running his hands through his damp, curling hair.

You turn the heat up more.

Just in his chamber, though, you keep the rest of yourself the normal temperature, because there’s one thing about keeping things the normal temperature that you really, really like.

Feferi wraps herself around you. “You’re so _warm_ ,” she murmurs, her voice practically purring like a catfish.

“You’re not,” you tease, and you nip at her fin. She squeals with delight and rubs her face against yours. You turn your head to lick the perfect inner shell of her ear, and she scrabbles eagerly at the seams of your flightsuit.

Outside you are making a slow, steady flyby of the orbit of the sun. You’re charting the surface storms--boiling red-gold swaths of lightning and clouds of flame millions of miles wide--and it’s something you would have _never_ seen in your old life, stuck on the planet, limited to the weak senses of your body, no cameras to zoom in close so you can see every single detail, you can’t be blinded from just a little sunlight.

Feferi slips her hand up against the tender skin of your stomach and you plow straight through a plasma flare, your hull shuddering all over from the radiation of it.

Eridan’s shirt is off, his trousers are off, you can see every last bead of pale purple sweat on his flushed face. He’s scrabbling at his tiny console with a brutal touch, trying to make you obey him, and it feels so fucking good that if it wasn’t him you might think about it, but you don’t have to, he never said please and you will never, _never_ give into him.

“Ship!” he’s howling. “Ship! Stop it, ship! This isn’t funny anymore.”

You and Feferi are kissing now, hot and heavy, her body rubbing up against you, her arms scrabbling for purchase as some of your cables thrash around on the floor. You haven’t quite got the hang of using them as limbs--it’s hard, you don’t quite remember how limbs are supposed to go--but you’re working on it, you’re looking forward to the day when you can wrap them around Feferi, when you can pull her closer to your body yourself.

“Sollux,” she whimpers into your mouth, “ _Sollux._ ”

“Please!” screams Eridan.

“II love you, Feferii,” you murmur against her mouth.

You turn the temperature down.

Feferi clings to you, breathing heavily.

“I hate you, Captor,” Eridan says under his breath, slumped against your shredded secondary console. He is long-legged and lean and gasping for you. One hand is drifting between his legs, and your cameras are upping their resolution...

Okay, maybe you don’t hate him platonicly after all.

\--

A long time ago, Feferi asked you what your wriggling day was. You remember being surprised that she would care. You didn’t know her very well, of course. You didn’t know _yourself_ very well.

You’re turning nine tonight and Feferi promised she has a surprise for you, but it’s on Eridan’s island and she can’t bring it down, you’ll understand when you see it, so as the sun sets far above the water, you and she ascend to the surface.

There are a pair of landtrolls on the island, uncomfortable under Eridan’s watchful, narrow-eyed glare: a tall, muscular blueblood male and a slender lowblood female with wild, curly hair and a pair of elegantly curved horns, like a woolbeast’s. Too, there’s a large heap of metal plating stacked outside of Eridan’s shipwreck.

“Suprise,” Feferi whispers into your ear and you laugh outloud.

“You’re reely doiing iit. You’re reely upgradiing me for deep2pace!”

She nods, doing a graceful aquatic backflip off your pillar. You catch her with one of your cables and pull her back in so that you can kiss her.

“You’re ready, Sollux,” she says happily. “We both are.”

Once ashore, you wait until the water is fully drained from your corridors before opening your doors as a courtesy to the landtrolls. _Poor thiing2_ , you think. You can’t imagine what it must be like to have to breathe air all the time. You know, intellectually, that a long time ago you used to have to, but it all seems so far away now.

 _It’ll fade in time_ , Feferi told you once, a long time ago, in one of the earliest of your proper memories. _And you’ll be happier for it._

She was right about that, like she was right about a lot of things.

“I’m Equius Zahhak,” the male introduces himself to Feferi as she greets them at your door. “This is my assistant and matesprit, Aradia Megido.”

“It’s an honor to serve your highness,” the female, Megido, says, but you can tell that she doesn’t mean it, you can recognize the subvocalized traces of lies in her voice, even if Feferi can’t-- Eridan’s nervous, too, suspicious. He gives you a sharp glare through one of your cameras, and you nod it just a little. You know that you’ll have to keep an eye on this one, you don’t need Admiral Paranoia pointing it out to you.

“Would you like to be introduced to the Helmsman?” Feferi asks.

“He’s just the fuckin’ wetware,” Eridan says. “No one important.”

“Oh, clam it. He’s my matesprit, and your kismesis,” Feferi says, “That’s _shore_ no one im-pour-tant at all!” and then smiles your favorite smile, the one with all her sharp white teeth. Eridan just sighs.

“Fef...”

“If your highness believes it is necessary,” Zahhak begins.

“We’d be honored,” Megido finishes, all false smiles.

Eridan slouches off to the bridge’s command station to get you engaged, while Feferi leads the landtrolls down your corridor, to the helmsblock where your body rests in its pillar. “The Helmsman of the Sunfish,” she declares waving her hand grandly, “Sollux Captor.”

“Plea2ed two meet you,” you say politely.

“Ah,” says Zahhak, looking from you to Megido, who is hanging back in the doorframe, body tight and twitchy. “I am pleased to meet you too, Helmsman.”

He is and he isn’t pleased, you can tell that much. You can feel your systems start to overclock, trying to analyze the exact angle of his clenched to his racing heartrate to his persperation. He’s scared, but not directly a threat.

Zahhak turns to Feferi and bows. “Would you mind escorting me to the subspace warp manifold, your highness? I would like to inspect it.”

“Of course,” says Feferi, smiling gently at him. “You don’t _have_ to call me ‘your highness,’ though, Equius. A simple ‘Feferi’ will suffice.”

He shakes his head, demurring. “I couldn’t.”

You keep watch over them with part of your mainframe as Feferi escorts Zahhak to your bow, but what you are really concerned with is Megido, pressed up against your wall, waiting and listening for their footsteps to fade away.

When you can only hear them with your microphones and not your body’s ears, that is when she rushes towards you, but you are too fast for her, you have her coiled in your cables, wrapped tightly in a bioware cocoon.

“Giive me a good rea2on not two pop your glubbiing head off, 2aboteur,” you growl, confining your voices to the helmsblock.

Her eyes are wide with fear and panic and unshed pale maroon tears. “Sollux,” she whispers. “Sollux, it’s _me_. Don’t you remember me?”

Your eyes squint at her, your cameras zoom in to analyze her every feature, to try to compare them with the memories in your databanks, but there are no records of her before this day, you would swear that you’ve never seen her before in your life.

Except. Except there is something like her in those far-off dreamlike recollections of the first half of your life, when you were only half yourself, when you were just the body and you hadn’t been given the rest of you yet. A little troll girl with curly hair and curly horns, like a woolbeast. Brave and brilliant and beautiful and--

“You’re my moiiraiil,” you gasp, letting go of her, your cables falling to the floor and she is running towards you, throwing her arms around you, you can’t fucking believe she’s here.

You thought you’d dreamed her up.

“ _Sollux_ ,” she says in a choked up voice like a sob and she hugs you tighter. “Oh Sollux, you don’t know how long I _looked_ for you.”

“2hoooo2h,” you murmur, smoothing her hair with a cable. “2hoooo2h. Iit’2 okay. II’m here, 2afe, you don’t have two worry.” You rub your cheek against hers. “II’m 2orry II forgot about you. II diidn’t mean two.”

She just hugs you tighter, weeping pink tears all over your flightsuit, and you shoosh her softly and stroke her hair with your cables--you’d pap her, but cables aren’t very good for that, not like hands are, you find yourself missing your hands for the first time in a long while. It makes your head hurt.

Finally, though, she stills and steps back from you. “So,” she says quietly. “This is you, now.”

“Ye2,” you say, “thii2 ii2 me, now. How diid you fiind me?”

“By following a lot of false leads,” she says, “and a few true ones. Ampora should have asked someone besides Karkat what to get his flushcrush for her wriggling day.”

“Oh,” you say. You’re really at a loss for what to say to Aradia, it’s been so long, she’s missed out so much of your life--but she’s your _moirail_ , damn it. “2o,” you say awkwardly. “You and Zahhak?”

“I could say the same about you and Peixes,” she says.

“What do you mean by _that_? ” you say sharply, your cables thrashing on the floor.

“Sollux,” Aradia says with infuriating calm. “You have to know that she’s just using you.”

“There’2 no _ju2t_ ,” you snarl. “We’re partner2!”

“She’s the future empress, and you’re a ship.”

“2he’2 my glubbiing mate2priit and 2he treat2 me liike one, two. 2he’2 my glubbiing mate2priit and my glubbiing Captaiin and II love her, Aradiia, can’t you under2tand that, don’t you love Zahhak?”

“I didn’t,” she says tightly. “At first.”

“II diidn’t eiither,” you say, “but then II got two know her and II can’t help but love her, you wiill two, I know you wiill, if you only giive her a chance.”

“Just listen to yourself!” Aradia shouts. “Of course you can’t help loving her, she owns your _fucking brain_!”

You hiss at her. She hisses back, and it’s been so long since anyone besides Ampora’s snapped at you that you shut right up.

“When we were little the very last thing you ever wanted was to be stuck inside a starship as a troll-shaped battery--you made me promise to _kill_ you if you ever were. And now look at you. Look at you! You were going to be a programmer. An inventor. You were going to be so many things and now you’re just-- in pieces, right down to your soul. Your hands, Sollux, you had such _beautiful_ hands and they dismantled them, they dismantled _you!_ How can you pretend you’re happy like this?”

“Because iit’2 not pretending,” you snap. “I reely am glubbiing happy, why can’t you bereef me--”

And then you catch a glint of silver being drawn from her pocket.

Aradia has a blade. A little utility knife, for stripping wires, but you don’t have-- there aren’t any wires down here that need to be stripped.

“What are you doiing?” you demand, raising your cables. She raises her empty hand, though, and everything goes _white_. You find your cables pinned down with a cold and awful force, your body held frozen and helpless in a way that has nothing to do with consoles. Your head is tipped back, your throat bared. Her fingers are so soft against your pulse, and so _warm._

Oh god, your body, you _need_ your body, you forget sometimes, but it’s the one and only part of you that can’t be replaced and she must know that, what the hell is _wrong_ with her?

“I’m keeping a promise, Sollux,” she says, and she sounds so sad.

“FEFERII!” you scream, sending all your stations to red alert, cables breaking through her hold, knocking the knife from her hand, pinning her to the wall. “2HE’2 TRYIING TO 2HUT DOWN MY BODY!”

There’s no water, Feferi can’t swim, but she runs as fast as she can through your corridors, Zahhak behind her, babbling apologies and pleas for mercy-- Eridan goes pelting along, takes him down with a strike of his gun-butt to the temple, good, one less thing to watch-- and then she is there in your helmsblock, culling fork at ready, the tines pressed against Aradia’s throat. Every bit of processing power you have is concentrated just on these two women. “Give me one reason why I shouldn’t cull you where you stand,” your Captain growls.

  


“Becau2e,” you say quietly, “2he’s my moiiraiil.”

Feferi turns her head to look at you. “Sollux. She tried to _krill_ you.”

“2he diidn’t know better,” you say. “II thiink II told her two, when II was two young two know any better eiither. Please, Feferii, II-- II know thiis giirl, or II u2ed two. We’re goiing to need her for the Revolutiion.”

“ _Fine_ ,” Feferi mutters. “Fine. But I’m confining her to your brig until we’re off planet--where she won’t be a danger to you or anybody else.”

\--

II know you don’t want to bereef me, Aradiia, but II reely am happy like this.

“How can you be?” she asks tiredly, slumped against your wall. “They cut you apart.”

They rea22embled me iinto somethiing moray than II was. II can _fly_ , Aradiia. II can fly--II can 2wiim through 2pace--II can 2ee the uniiverse in way2 I never could have iimagiined when we were minnows.

“At the expense of losing half your body.”

By gaiiniing a 2econd one. Iit reely iis just liike your dopey Starshiip Pals books. Remember 2ense and 2hiippabiiliity? Feferii loves that one--

“I burned all the fucking Starship books I ever had. All of them! I can’t believe I liked them, they’re _sick_.”

They’re kiind of 2weet, actually. II liied when II saiid II threw away that 2tupiid locket you gave me.

“I know,” she says in a thick voice. “We found it in your hive after you disappeared.”

II wii2h II knew how two prove two you that I reely am happy thiis way.

“I wish you could too,” she says, blinking back tears. “I don’t like to think of you being miserable and I don’t know how you can’t be with the way you are now.”

Iit’2 liike... iit’2 liike when you’re liittle, you have liittle dream2. Liike beiing a programmer. But then you grow up and your dream2 have to grow up wiith you. Untiil they’re as biig as a 2tar2hiip. Biig as the 2un, biig as all the 2tar2 iin the 2ky. Iit’s ALL me, you know. II’m a2 much the 2tar2hiip 2unfish as I am the troll 2ollux. 

She touches the wall of your brig, strokes it like she might have stroked your face, a long time ago, and then rests her forehead against it. “I don’t... Sollux...”

Iif you can love the part of me that’2 a troll, can’t you al2o love the part of me that’2 a shiip?

She swallows hard. “Maybe... maybe I could learn to.”

\--

And then after a perigee of growth and repairs and alterations you are shipshape and ready to leave the solar system, ready to make your first trans-solar flight, ready to see what you are really made of.

Feferi stands on your new bridge, with Eridan and Aradia and Equius. Your matesprit, your kismesis, your moirail, and your moirail’s matesprit... Your Crew. It’ll be bigger someday soon. All those old friends from your before-time-- Aradia told you stories about them, Karkat, Terezi, even Tavros is still around, she helped you remember them just a little and when you see them again you’ll finally be able to make real memories with them in your databanks.

The two landtrolls are gazing out your windows with expressions of joy and wonder, like they can hardly believe they’re seeing this amazing sight, their planet beneath them like a beautiful little gray marble. You remember the first time you were in orbit around Alternia. You wanted to stay up here forever, make your home in all the universe.

Soon you will.

“Come, my friends,” says Equius under his breath. “‘Tis not too late to seek a newer world. Push off, and sitting well in order smite the sounding furrows--” He breaks off, seeing the mustard-colored inquiry noodle on your nearest viewscreen. “From ‘Trollysses,’” he explains. “By Troll Snoop Dogg.”

You run a quick search through your media archives till you find the verse, and sigh. Highbloods and their terrible tastes-- you have no idea what Aradia sees in this guy.

II thiink you all 2hould probably get iin your 2eat2. We’re going to hiit warp pretty hard.

You wait until they’re sitting down. Feferi strokes your console eagerly. She wants to go now. You can tell.

Waiiiiiiiiit for it, you send privately to just her viewscreen. She wiggles in place, in her seat, trusting you. Waiit.

She types <3 back at you, and you laugh.

And then the sun drops behind Alternia and everything is so perfect and beautiful and _small_ \--

NOW!

\--and the stars turn into beautiful streaks of light as you finally, finally break free.

 _...for my purpose holds  
To sail beyond the sunset, and the baths  
Of all the western stars, until I die._  
\--Troll Snoop Dogg, "Trollyses"

**Works inspired by this one:**

  * [The Baths of All the Western Stars (The Gulfs Will Wash Us Down Mix)](https://archiveofourown.org/works/306859) by [PlayerProphet](https://archiveofourown.org/users/PlayerProphet/pseuds/PlayerProphet)




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